Misgendering . . . actually isn't

[Fifteentoes]

Someone a while back accused me of misgendering someone, and being an open minded and reflective kind of guy, if gender critical, I found myself thinking about it from time to time. Wondering if I really had done something wrong, should try to do things differently, etc.

Then I realised, I hadn't done anything of the sort. When I referred to the person as male I wasn't referring to their gender, I was referring to their sex (as the meaning of the word has been understood for millenia, and still is by most people). As I was making no claim whatsoever about their gender, how could I be misgendering them?

It's like these people not only claim the right to change the meaning of language, but the right to interpret everyone else's use of the language according to the new meaning as well, even when it's not intended that way. And then get offended by it.

Weird.

I know that I will start with preferred, but default back to observed if the other person shows me disrespect

What you are doing is disrespecting their identity.

As a woman, I am disrespected by the entirety of gender identity ideology and politics, so my sympathy is somewhat limited.

We know deliberate misgendering is perceived as hostile, it will immediately get people's backs up and change the way they read and process the posts here.

And conversely, there are many of us who believe that the use of preferred pronouns is compelled speech which obfuscates what is actually going on. See Barra Kerr's article, hosted on Fair Play For Women's site:

Try this next experiment. For a week, re-translate all the transgender articles and comments you find, back to sex-based pronouns, nouns and original names. Rewrite them back to the blunt truth and then read them again. Doing this exercise solely in your mind will do just fine, but editing on a screen is better.
Convert female pronouns back to male; use surnames instead of first names, and convert terms like transwoman back to just ‘man’.

•••••

I want to be alert. I want others to be alert. I want people to see the real picture, and I want those instinctive reactions that we feel when something is wrong, to be un-blunted, un-dulled by this cheap but effective psychological trick. I feel like I owe this to myself, and I absolutely owe it to other women.
And more than anything, I owe this to girls. I don’t want to play even the tiniest part in grooming them to disregard their natural protective instincts. Those instincts are there for a reason. To keep them safe. They need those instincts intact, and sharp.
And that’s why I won’t use preferred pronouns.

The problem is that what everyone seemed to agree was just a polite courtesy - calling a transwoman "she" - no longer is accepted as just a polite courtesy.

In a world where "trans women are women" is now a statement that we're supposed to take literally, this is no longer a matter of courtesy.

As currently being fought out in Scotland - the definition of a "woman" for various purposes, such as equal pay stats, now incorporates "people referred to as she".

So if I call a transwoman "she", I am potentially skewing female pay reporting.

Or, even worse, it could be used as evidence that they deserve a place in a women's prison.

So, no.

Maybe at a personal level, I can imagine calling a transwoman "she", but only if the issue of sex never came up, and they never made any claim to actually be a woman. The moment they showed any sign of doing that, sorry, no, I have to be clear that you are not a woman, and nothing I say should be interpreted as accepting you as one.

One slightly weird analogy - defending trademarks. Companies often make what seem to be cruel "take downs" of individuals or tiny shops using their characters or brand name variants. And people often wonder "why is Disney attacking this fish-and-chip stall" or whatever. The answer is because if they don't then they can lose control of their trademarks. They have to demonstrate that they care enough to attempt to control it - if they don't, when it matters, courts can use past failure to police the trademark as evidence that it doesn't actually matter to them, and suggest they're being selectively vindictive.

I think this whole thing works a bit like that - given that we've called all these males "she", and said they're "women", it's a bit late to complain now they're in women's sports and prisons. Should have said something sooner! Obviously didn't care that much what "women" were or you would have said something...

And conversely, there are many of us who believe that the use of preferred pronouns is compelled speech which obfuscates what is actually going on.

Good stuff on that from Legal Feminist this week:

Schrödinger’s PCP

Coda – on words

I was junior counsel for AEA in this case. Before that hearing, I had been willing – out of politeness, and sensitivity to the feelings of trans people generally – to write and speak of “trans women,” and use feminine pronouns, even when not referring to real individuals but exploring hypotheticals and generalities. Listening to argument in court that day was a personal tipping-point. It became vivid – to me at least – in the course of the hearing that the unreal language being used by everyone was obscuring the logic of the arguments and confusing the court. It’s much easier to see at a glance that a legitimate rule excluding men will legitimately exclude all men if your language acknowledges that all the people whom it excludes are indeed men.

Thinking, speaking and writing of “trans women” or “transsexual women” primes our minds to conceptualise [censored for mumsnet] men as a kind of woman. They are not: men are still men – however they identify, whatever they wear, and whatever treatment they may have undergone to modify their bodies to look more like women’s bodies. Those of us who would defend clarity and rationality in this area of the law need to hold that line.

Which is to say, that the effect of "preferred pronouns" is to make people walk on eggshells, fearful of offending. It's easy to abuse this as a power trip.

Males commit 98% of sex crime and most other violent crime. It's important to retain for women and girls to retain our protective instincts. A large problem I have is that women's comfort is dismissed and our very real and legitimate concerns about safety are ridiculed. Self ID literally means that every male who claims to be a woman is a woman and should be treated in exactly the same way. They are not, and should not be.

How has "disrespecting someone's identity" become such a huge crime anyway? My neighbor apparently believes he's God's gift to women. I suppose we disrespect his identity when we wish he'd put a shirt on. My BIL believes he knows everything about anything. When I discard his advice I'm probably disrespecting his identity too. When my coworker claims she's a kind person but gossips meanly about people, I disrespect her identity too.

I will always refer to people according to sex based pronouns rather than gender based.

@NiceGerbil

That's not what this is about though.

Male is not a pronoun etc.

I'm really interested in finding out the context before commenting.

OP could have been behaving like a dick.

I mean who knows.

I may well have been being a dick, but that's not what I was accused of. I was accused of misgendering them.

I think people have assumed that you used "he" when the preferred pronouns are "she". I have definitely heard referring to a MTF trans person as male being called "misgendering", if that is what you mean, OP.

@NiceGerbil

In what context did you use the term male? When I assume talking with someone about another person you both knew.

This is the thing. Surely there are loads of scenarios where male or female are relevant, but literally none where someone's unproveable and potentially fluctuating inner sense of gender has any relevance at all.

I have no desire to misgender anyone, but my current view is that I will simply refer to people by their name every single time, however awkward it makes the chat, because I am not going to play a part in the erosion of women's rights (and the rights of everyone with a sexual orientation of course).

I walked past a man today. He had blue hair, I think he had a little bit of make-up, and he had jeans that stopped 5" above his ankles, a look that is historically more a thing that women do rather than men.

A year or two ago I would have looked at him and thought "good to see someone a bit different from the ordinary, a bit like me. Someone challenging sex-based stereotypes that are so sick and pathetic and outdated and damaging".

Today my reaction was "I wonder if he's trans, and if he is I wonder if he is one of the many extremist misogynists who are seeking to destroy women's rights."

So sad what this sick ideology is doing.

Also, I note that post-op transsexuals are often entirely fine with being misgendered - they know that they are men who can never be women. All they can do is play at being a woman and -- hopefully - get soe validation back, but if it doesn;t come then so be it. People who use men's toilets because they believe that their desire to be validated is a hope not a right, whereas women's right to feel safe in single sex spaces is a right.

@MishyJDI

What you are doing is disrespecting their identity. Ask yourself why you want to hurt another person in doing that, and perhaps reflect on that - especially knowing you will be hurting them. The rest then I guess is your choice on how you wish to be as a human being, and if your view on their sex (which may or may not be right!) and expressing it, is adding or taking away from goodwill in our society.

Oh well. Perhaps they should ask themselves why they are depending on the catastrophically precarious means of other people's approval to have their identity confirmed, because between children, animals and other people, it is doomed to failure.

And you'd perhaps also like to consider just how much goodwill has been burned away by threats of rape and death.

Is it just me or would most women prefer to have their "identity" "disrespected" than have their hard-won sex-based rights eliminated?

WTF make the entitled trans activists so special?

@LaetitiaASD

Is it just me or would most women prefer to have their "identity" "disrespected" than have their hard-won sex-based rights eliminated?

WTF make the entitled trans activists so special?

Not just you.

'I may well have been being a dick, but that's not what I was accused of. I was accused of misgendering them.'

Well that's interesting.

Are you going to give the context?

From what you've said I think you won't. And I suspect that's because it was unpleasant.

And if so, and the other person thought that's out of order. And on the spot could only think of that phrase to say it.

Well that's a different matter.

I can't imagine how i would end up referring to a mutual acquaintance, in conversation, as male.

I'm not going to agree your semantic point when it sounds like you shoehorned male in, in order to make a point.

@MishyJDI

What you are doing is disrespecting their identity. Ask yourself why you want to hurt another person in doing that, and perhaps reflect on that - especially knowing you will be hurting them. The rest then I guess is your choice on how you wish to be as a human being, and if your view on their sex (which may or may not be right!) and expressing it, is adding or taking away from goodwill in our society.

While I would agree with you..

..But, Why is it whenever I've had to ask a trans person to please stop referring to me as 'Cis' or 'Cishet' I get told; 'No, that's what you are '.

Does this decent human being thing only work one way round? because I wouldn't have a problem at all going out of my way to not hurt anyone's feelings, if only I thought they gave a damn about hurting my feelings too

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Which is to say, that the effect of "preferred pronouns" is to make people walk on eggshells, fearful of offending. It's easy to abuse this as a power trip.

Males commit 98% of sex crime and most other violent crime. It's important to retain for women and girls to retain our protective instincts. A large problem I have is that women's comfort is dismissed and our very real and legitimate concerns about safety are ridiculed. Self ID literally means that every male who claims to be a woman is a woman and should be treated in exactly the same way. They are not, and should not be.

This is exactly what makes me furious too.

It's blatantly obvious that there's a huge amount of sexual male predators on out streets. Just this week another woman was murdered 5 minutes from her home.
Self ID would give any male with predatory intent the opportunity to pretend to be trans to access women in vulnerable places.

This is obvious and widely acknowledged everywhere except in trans circles

We get told we're imagining things, we can't discriminate against all men because of one rapist, that it'll never happen.

They don't seem to car about putting women at risk, as long as they can come in and pee all over the seat in the ladies loos cubicle

@MishyJDI

What you are doing is disrespecting their identity. Ask yourself why you want to hurt another person in doing that, and perhaps reflect on that - especially knowing you will be hurting them. The rest then I guess is your choice on how you wish to be as a human being, and if your view on their sex (which may or may not be right!) and expressing it, is adding or taking away from goodwill in our society.

And what they're doing by expecting me to pretend their fictitious identity supersedes actual facts is disrespecting my intelligence, and that of everyone else in the room. Someone whose identity depends on everyone they encounter being dumb as a brick, and who is "hurt" by neutral statements of fact, should perhaps do a bit of reflecting themselves. They could start by reflecting on whether they're "hurt" by statements like "the sky is blue," and then contemplating the differences between "the sky is blue" and "you have a Y chromosome."

@Ereshkigalangcleg

We know deliberate misgendering is perceived as hostile, it will immediately get people's backs up and change the way they read and process the posts here.

And conversely, there are many of us who believe that the use of preferred pronouns is compelled speech which obfuscates what is actually going on. See Barra Kerr's article, hosted on Fair Play For Women's site:

Try this next experiment. For a week, re-translate all the transgender articles and comments you find, back to sex-based pronouns, nouns and original names. Rewrite them back to the blunt truth and then read them again. Doing this exercise solely in your mind will do just fine, but editing on a screen is better.
Convert female pronouns back to male; use surnames instead of first names, and convert terms like transwoman back to just ‘man’.

•••••

I want to be alert. I want others to be alert. I want people to see the real picture, and I want those instinctive reactions that we feel when something is wrong, to be un-blunted, un-dulled by this cheap but effective psychological trick. I feel like I owe this to myself, and I absolutely owe it to other women.
And more than anything, I owe this to girls. I don’t want to play even the tiniest part in grooming them to disregard their natural protective instincts. Those instincts are there for a reason. To keep them safe. They need those instincts intact, and sharp.
And that’s why I won’t use preferred pronouns.

Link to the article. fairplayforwomen.com/pronouns/

@MishyJDI

What you are doing is disrespecting their identity. Ask yourself why you want to hurt another person in doing that, and perhaps reflect on that - especially knowing you will be hurting them. The rest then I guess is your choice on how you wish to be as a human being, and if your view on their sex (which may or may not be right!) and expressing it, is adding or taking away from goodwill in our society.

And they are disrespecting many women’s lived experiences by culturally appropriating what they think a woman is.

And some are insisting people participate in their paraphilias.

Neither of those sound like adding to goodwill in our society to me.

One person's misgendering is another person's compelled speech/thought
I respect a person's rights to believe in God/ any other higher being/ internal gender
I do not want to be forced to accept that belief system or have my language changed to indicate acceptance for it

I don’t think anyone’s identity - sense of self - deserves respect @MishyJDI, as a default.

It’s perfectly possible to acknowledge how a person sees him/herself and be polite to them without ever having to agree with or honour their self-perception.

My FIL describes himself a a straight talking man who doesn’t suffer fools gladly. I think he’s a rude, racist, sexist homophobe who should cancel his Daily Mail subscription for the sake of everyone around him.

I can still be friendly and polite at family gatherings, remember his birthday when his own sons forget, get on with him (with only inward eye rolls) without respecting his identity in the slightest. He thinks he’s The Voice Of Reason, I don’t. It’s all ok.

People who are non binary may think they transcend male/female, or perhaps combine it. I think they’re one or the other and that’s immutable. I respect their right to define themselves - to themselves- as they see fit. I also respect everyone else’s right to disagree (or not).

If our identity relies on constant external validation, that’s a mental health issue, not a thing to be indulged

Well said doomscrolling.

@NiceGerbil

'I may well have been being a dick, but that's not what I was accused of. I was accused of misgendering them.'

Well that's interesting.

Are you going to give the context?

From what you've said I think you won't. And I suspect that's because it was unpleasant.

And if so, and the other person thought that's out of order. And on the spot could only think of that phrase to say it.

Well that's a different matter.

I can't imagine how i would end up referring to a mutual acquaintance, in conversation, as male.

I'm not going to agree your semantic point when it sounds like you shoehorned male in, in order to make a point.

Why are you so badly misunderstanding here while wittering away on your own little narrative?

No body accused anyone of being male. They were using male pronouns.

I'm assuming you know what those are, but if you're struggling, Google it.